Spanish Grand Prix: Bottas must improve starts... and red flag for Ferrari crew
Following Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth race of the Formula One season, here are some talking points from the action in Barcelona.
Bottas must improve on his starts
Valtteri Bottas can make good starts. He did it in Australia when he out-dragged Mercedes-GP driver Lewis Hamilton into the first corner to set up his race win at the season opener in March.
But something has gone awry since then. He has started ahead of Hamilton in the past three races, a great effort given what a great qualifier the fivetime world champion is.
Yet he lost the lead in China and then on Sunday in Spain, and only held him off in Azerbaijan because the run to the first turn was so short.
Gifting Hamilton track position is criminal. Beating him, in the same machinery to the world title is a massive ask, so giving up the hard-earned advantage gained on Saturday in qualifying in the opening seconds is the equivalent of shooting himself in the foot.
Hamilton was visibly quicker in Barcelona, but Bottas could have at least made his life tougher if he had maintained the lead.
Once is bad luck. Twice is unfortunate. But three times is becoming an issue.
Bottas has to nail his getaways and quickly or any hope of beating Hamilton is done.
Ferrari’s team tactics remain abysmal
One of the key things in F1 is to think on your feet, something Ferrari seem unable to do. They would have had lots of permutations in their head for Sunday’s race.
Sebastian Vettel damaging one of his tyres as he outbraked himself at the start was probably not one of their main ones. But the German was hampered by his flat-spotted right front Pirelli and it slowed him. He held up teammate Charles Leclerc and it took Ferrari four laps to tell Vettel to allow him past.
Later in the race the boot was on the other foot as Leclerc, on a one-stop strategy, was holding up Vettel, who had been forced onto a two-stop plan due to an early first visit to the pits to get rid of his damaged tyre. Again Ferrari dithered and more time was lost before Leclerc yielded.
Beating Mercedes is hard enough as it is, but both those cases probably cost their drivers behind at least five to six seconds. Sunday was not about a race win as Mercedes were in a class of their own at the front but one of their drivers should have been on the podium in third.
Instead it was Red Bull Rac
ing’s Max Verstappen. Ferrari have to tighten up as an operative unit and quickly.
Learning curve for Norris
Lando Norris has had an impressive start to life in F1 at McLaren, more than holding his own against his more experienced teammate Carlos Sainz.
But he learnt an important lesson on Sunday: don’t presume anything in the sport. He crashed out in a collision with Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and arguably only had himself to blame.
The two were going wheel-to-wheel through Turn 1 and collided on the entry of Turn 2 as Norris hit the left rear of Stroll’s car.
Stroll did not leave the Briton any room, but Norris was unwise to just expect the Canadian to move aside and left himself in a position where he could be hit.
It was a bit of inexperienced driving, but given he is 19 and this was only his fifth grand prix that is understandable.
Norris presumed that he would have been given space, having been side-by-side into the previous braking zone, but that did not materialise as Stroll turned across him and took the normal racing line.
Given the skittish reputation that Stroll has, not many of the F1 grid would willingly put themselves in a position where they were at the mercy of the Canadian’s judgement.
Norris did and he paid the penalty for it. It is an error he can learn from.